Hello ! Im Zahary and I recently started looking for a 2D game engine that is free , because I want to make a fighter game (like Super Smash Bros). I saw a Getting Started video from GameFromScratch on YouTube about Defold . I like everything about it … everything has its on purpose . Im really really new to the engine and I have a vague knowledge about Lua . So how should I proceed to make the game that I want . My biggest question is about collisions and how should i go with stuff like combos or certain game mechanics that involve combat ?
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Hello and welcome to the forum @ZaharyM!
Here’s one post on detecting combos: Complex inputs for a fighting game or similar (SOLVED)
Here’s a dev diary for an (unfinished?) beat’em up: Metal Hooligan beat’em up
And another about state-machines in a fighting game: Complicated fighting game state machines?
Some thoughts:
- Personally I’d explore the use of spine models for the fighters. You can attach game objects with collision objects to the hands and feet and other’s for hit areas in head, torso and legs.
- Another idea could be to spawn/fire short lived game objects containing collision objects and let them travel a short distance from the player performing a punch or a kick.
- Gotcha: Flipping a sprite by rotating around the y-axis will not rotate the collision object (DEF-1117)
- @samuel.nystedt started a beat’em up in Defold on an exploration day here at the office. Not sure if he dares to share the project or not.
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Woow ! I didn’t expect such a quick answear , @britzl ! Thank you for the threads . I will read them very carefully and try my best to learn what I need for the project . Unfortunately I don’t want to spend too much money , so Spine models won’t fit my tight budget , but is there any other way that i can implement the Spine mechanic without spending 70 dollars ( 120 local currency) . About the “combo” or idea that you mentioned … it is a great mechanic that I think is easy to add … so i will probably add it 
. And I might conctact Samuel for more information on his project and how he is doing !
Dragonbones is free and can export to the Spine format. There might be some incompatibility. Also remember that we support the Spine v2 format. Search the forum for more information.
I just read on the forum , that Dragon Bones can export to spine 3.3 so that issue is fixed ! Now I only need
persistence and I’m set to go ! Thank you so much for the materials and the information and I hope than soon I can publish a Dev diary !
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@ZaharyM I went with the “shooting invisible physics objects” approach for my little game I think it works fairly well. The spine approach sounds good too.
I’ll share it with you if you like. It’s very far from a full game though, just spent a day or two trying out the engine (I’m not a game developer).
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Yes, ray casts would be another solution. The idea behind the short lived game object traveling in the direction of the attack would be that it would follow a hand or foot through a punch or kick and hit at a time in sync with the animation (given that you animate it at the correct speed ofc). On the other hand it would also hit too soon if you’re standing on top of your opponent… A ray cast could use the fraction result from a ray_cast_hit to solve this.
I’m not quite sure about the full idea . The classic fighter is kinda too similar to other popular games , so I might combine The Binding of Isaac elements and a typical fighter elements , because mixing genres seems a good idea !
@samuel.nystedt Yeah I would appreciate it ! I want to mix up maybe random generated rooms and fighter mechanics .
@carlfredriknybergbro I will for sure check out Ray casts !
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Sent you a PM 
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So what about the A.I in opponents? Or would the compilation only consist of a 1 person beat’em up?
My main idea was to create a AR game , where you can design your own level by drawing it on a piece of paper ( for example) and then you can play on that level with your friends . But as more and more obstacles appeared … i eventually stopped the development of the idea .
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Sounds unusual and cool. it would be cool that you would draw a weapon before the level that you can fight and it would appear on the map randomly
As , in my opinion all AR games are , on a mobile devices . I want total customization over the user end … but i have too much work in high school with embedded projects and the idea kinda fell apart .
Oh, it’s a pity, although it is logical, because you need to draw a level. But as an option, on the same handheld console, you can just copy the drawn levels
Just a note that DEF-1117 was solved in 1.2.161 when we added physics.set_hflip/physics.set_vflip
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